


To Kneel and Kiss the Ground

by Minerva_Holmes



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Breakfast in Bed, Coffee as ineffective stalling, Hathaway has a serious oral fixation, Hathaway quotes poetry as usual, Intercrural Sex, Lewis is dubious about his pectorals, M/M, Morning Sex, Oral Sex, Poetry, Rumi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:44:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minerva_Holmes/pseuds/Minerva_Holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How can you be quoting poetry right now?  I’ve barely still got my English over here."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Kneel and Kiss the Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crowgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/gifts), [elizajane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/gifts).



> For the "Breakfast in Bed" challenge cooked up among Crowgirl, Elizajane, and I. We lamented the dearth of realistic fics complete with morning breath, lazy lie-ins, and tatty pajamas, and then decided to fill the void ourselves. Enjoy! Feedback earns internet-mediated hugs.

 

 

“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty  
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study  
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.  
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”1

 

As usual, Lewis woke with the sunrise.  The intermittent patches of sunlight sliding between the slats of the blinds caught like individual flames on and under his eyelids and sparked his body into reluctant wakefulness.  Nothing was awaiting his attention – no case, no paperwork, no witnesses to persuade into truth, nothing.  And yet, he was awake at what was probably an ungodly hour.  _Ugh, I feel done in_ , Lewis thought as a dull pressure at the bottom of his spine joined forces with the cotton-filled complaint of his head to remind him of all his fifty-six years.

A muffled huff of breath to his right shoulder brought his attention to Hathaway, half curled into his side and half on his front.  He had his face buried into the pillow just beside Lewis’ head.  He knew it was an unlikely occurrence, what with self-preservation instincts and all, but Lewis often worried that Hathaway would suffocate in his sleep positioned like that.

Hathaway slept oddly.  Lewis remembered the first time he’d witnessed it – Hathaway lying with his arms tucked under him, pulled up to his chest, and his hands practically grasping each other.  The sight had brought to mind those small statues of children praying.  But the association felt wrong, the image too simplistic for the man.  He’d long since stopped thinking that Hathaway was some sort of choirboy.  He wasn’t actually naïve, not by half.  And innocent … well, no.  Hathaway was earnest.  He’d once spent all night on a nicotine and Wagner-fuelled deconstruction of Chloe Brooks’ last conscious night via photographs just because Lewis had said something about the case bothered him.  Yes, Hathaway was far too earnest.

 _That’s enough thinking for one morning_ , Lewis told himself as he backed away from his Hathaway-filled, sleepy considerations.  He needed coffee, a shower, breakfast, and a meeting with a toothbrush, preferably in that order, if his day was truly to begin.  He then looked over at the lightly snoring lump by his side and revised his plan to toothbrushing, coffee, kissing, shower, breakfast, and then toothbrushing again.  That would do.  Sliding first his left and then right leg over the edge of the bed, Lewis began the delicate task of extricating his right arm from under Hathaway’s shoulder before getting himself into a seated position.  He was halfway through a fatigued groan and a rough swipe of hand over his stubbly, sandpaper chin when a quick streak of ivory caught his peripheral vision and Hathaway settled his arm around Lewis’ middle, gripping firmly.

“S’nothing on.  C’m back.” Hathaway said into the cotton of the pillow.

“Want to try that again?” Lewis replied with more gruffness than he’d intended.  Damn, he needed coffee.  Why had he decided to wait up for Hathaway to return from band practice last night?  Why had he let the man feed him curry and bitter at 11 o’clock?  They’d eaten and settled down to _Doctor Who_ and a cuddle until around 1 o’clock, when they’d both practically fallen into bed.  That was most likely why he felt like death with a bad case of heartburn.

“No case.  No call fr’m Inn’cent.  C’m back bed.” Hathaway tried again with slightly more enunciative success.

“I needed to brush my teeth and get some coffee in me five minutes ago, Jim.  I’ll be right back.”  Lewis offered from behind the hand rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“No.” Hathaway replied and pulled his arm tighter around Lewis simultaneously.

Lewis turned his head round to eye Hathaway sternly.  “Let me up, pet.  I’m so knackered I can barely think straight and my mouth is not a pleasant place right now.”

“Mmm, I bet it is,” was Hathaway’s less-slurred answer.

Lewis was surprised, not for the first time, by Hathaway’s easy desire, the almost lazy way he inhabited his need for Lewis.  He had let Hathaway’s confusion after Will’s suicide color his ideas about the man’s sexuality and his comfort with it for far too long.  He hadn’t been watching for the change – the forgiveness Hathaway had gradually given himself after Lewis had pulled him from that burning flat.  Lewis had been too busy avoiding what he thought would remain a closed subject.  He hadn’t counted on Hathaway’s tendency to jump into the deep end feet first.  And that’s just what Hathaway had done after they’d come to their delayed understanding over a month earlier – he’d taken a running start and launched into the novel permission to touch and take and have.

Lewis felt the arm around his waist begin to rise, palm first, towards his chest, pulling with greater purpose. “Pushy,” he accused even as he gave in and let Hathaway lower him back towards the pillows.

“Cold,” answered Hathaway in mock frustration.

Lewis knew that when he had a cheeky Hathaway on his hands it was usually best to run with it. “Oi!  I’m just a duvet to you, am I?

Hathaway repositioned himself with his right leg over Lewis’ own and moved his face into the space between Lewis’ shoulder and ear. “Sexy Duvet.”

And there it was again, that comfortable craving.  Lewis wondered if he’d ever get used to it, if he’d ever truly believe it.  Maybe he wasn’t supposed to.  If he took the man’s wanting him for granted, he’d lose the sense of its preciousness.

“You smell more like you here.  I like it,” Hathaway mumbled into Lewis’ neck as his nose pressed into the skin below his hairline and behind his ear.

Lewis couldn’t keep the confusion from his voice, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Hathaway’s voice took on a startlingly coherent schooling tone, the one at which Lewis often pretended to be exasperated. “Other parts don’t smell as much like you really.  Your hands usually smell like metal.  When you’re talking to Hobson at a scene, or a witness, or me as we’re getting into the car or in the office, you hold your keys in your hand, even when they’re in your pocket.  Your forearms smell like paper and ink toner, because you always pull up your sleeves before you sit down to type or read reports at your desk.  Your calves smell like cotton, and wool at this time of year, where your socks rub against them all day.  And your upper thighs smell like your dry cleaners where they slide along your trousers as you sit and stand.” 

Lewis felt Hathaway’s hand take a leisurely path from his left ribs down to his hip and then his upper thigh before ghosting over the front of his pajamas. “There is one other part of you that smells properly like you.”

Catching Hathaway’s hand in a firm grip, Lewis said, “Coffee first.”

But Hathaway chose that moment to drag his hand, along with Lewis’, back towards the bed.  Slipping from the grip, Hathaway pinned Lewis’ wrists to the mattress and moved to land in the space between his legs.

Staring down at him, Hathaway said, “I’ll have you know I’m a much better stimulant than coffee,” and leaned in to press his lips softly to Lewis’ own.  He started with a few light kisses before running a long lick from one end to the other of Lewis’ mouth.  Tracing his tongue back to the center, Hathaway waited for Lewis inevitably to open his mouth to deepen the kiss.  Slipping his tongue inside, Hathaway lowered his body down and rolled his hips and torso languorously while licking long simultaneously-timed paths along Lewis’ tongue.

As much as his body was starting to take interest, Lewis felt that the leisurely pace was doing nothing to fulfill Hathaway’s promise.  Then Hathaway decided to break the kiss for a series of sharp, little bites to Lewis’ top and bottom lips.  “Still with me?” he asked, alternating between bites and kisses to the outer edges of Lewis’ smile.

“Mmm,” was Lewis’ lightly dazed answer.

The alternating bites and kisses continued down along Lewis’ chin and onto his jaw.  Hathaway released his grip on Lewis’ wrists and shifted down to give proper attention to his neck.  Immediately Lewis brought one hand up to grasp into the hair at the base of Hathaway’s head and the other under Hathaway’s arm to rest on his ribs, caressing them in circular patterns.  Predictably, Hathaway went from kissing and nibbling to licking and nipping.  Lewis wasn’t convinced that the smell thing motivated Hathaway’s consistent interest in this area of his body, but God, it felt good so he wasn’t going to argue over it, even in his head.

Hathaway had managed to give every exposed inch of his neck sufficient, unhurried attention, before setting out to slide his tongue in a long line down from Lewis’ Adam’s apple to the hollow between his collar bones.  That definitely had Lewis’ concentrated attention, and within moments he was panting loudly into the room.  After kissing the hollow several times, Hathaway pulled to his knees and placed his hands on the hem of Lewis’ t-shirt with an imperious “off.”

Lewis hurried to get his hands on Hathaway’s.  “I’d rather not,” he said, trying for the same firmness in Hathaway’s demand.

Hathaway rubbed soothing patterns into the small stretch of bare skin available to his thumbs.  “I’d rather not have ‘Let there be peace in the Thames Valley’ standing between me and your nipples right now,” Hathaway said nodding his head in the direction of the departmental t-shirt Lewis often wore to bed.

Lewis lifted his hands tentatively from Hathaway’s, watching to see if the man would press his luck and go for his shirt again, and pressed one palm to Hathaway’s chest and the other under his left arm where Lewis found the hole he was looking for.  “Yours isn’t exactly winning prizes, is it?  How long have you had this?  It’s not like you to wear shabby things, Mr. Lavender Socks.”

Hathaway succumbed to a chuckle as Lewis’ hand slid into the hole in the shirt and along a particularly ticklish spot on his side. “It’s a t-shirt from a show.  My favorite show.  I know what you’re trying to do dhere.  I’m not easily distracted.”

“Who are they, then?” Lewis said pointing at the front where the design of what looked to be a man slightly out of focus and in the process of spinning was printed.

“ _He_ is Mercan Dede.”  The academic tone was back in Hathaway’s voice, which Lewis thought vaguely ridiculous given that the man was kneeling between his legs, dangerously close to his erection, trying to get him to take his shirt off. “His instrument is the ney, the reed flute, and his music is a fusion of modern electronic with traditional Sufi.”

“Sufi?” Lewis’ asked, because this was going to keep Hathaway occupied for a few minutes at least.

“Like Rumi.” But when Hathaway saw Lewis’ lack of recognition at the name, he continued, “Jalal ad-Din Rumi, the thirteenth century Persian poet made famous in the west for his love poetry.”  Lewis had hoped for more elaboration, actually more time, but that seemed to be all the explanation he was getting.

Returning to his original intention, Hathaway said, “Shirt. Off.”

Feeling a little defensive and a lot sarcastic, Lewis replied, “Coffee. Now.”

“You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep,”2 was Hathaway’s cryptic reply.

“Let me guess, Rumi?” asked Lewis.  “Is that your poetic way of saying I’m not going to get coffee?”

Hathaway’s eyes clouded over with something Lewis’ did not often see directed at him anymore, frustration and hurt. “Yes and yes.  At least not until you tell me what this is about.”  And then there was a heavy pause as Hathaway lowered his head.  “You don’t trust me.”

Lewis knew that last bit was not a question.  In the next few moments this could turn very unpleasant if he didn’t get it sorted.  But how could he say everything he needed to say without raising Hathaway’s hair-trigger hackles.  How could he say that he had been relieved this last month that they’d been so busy with cases, and mandatory “technology” training, and his new wee granddaughter, that often their sex was a bit hurried after a long day.  He’d been happy with the frantic, passionate way they’d stroke each other as Hathaway tried to devour the skin above his jugular.  And he’d been more than glad that he’d gotten to keep his shirt on through it all.  He spared an occasional thought for how laughable it was to be lavishly sucked off in a t-shirt and bare arse, but it was preferable to the alternative. 

Hathaway was striking anyway you saw him – in suits with shirt buttons straining, in jeans with a well-worn t-shirt, in only his own skin.  He was a mixture of softness and firmness.  His skin was shockingly pale where it never saw the sun, and Lewis marveled at the warm, smooth expanse of it.  But there was strength to Hathaway as well.  He could feel it in the tensing and twisting of muscle under his hands when Hathaway was above him and all he could do was grip and hold on as the pleasure came in waves.

Lewis knew what he looked like.  He saw himself in the mirror every day.  Ever since Val had died, he’d been steadily going to paunch.  Not too much, mind, but just enough for him to know that the sight wasn’t likely to get anyone any kind of hard.  He was getting older and having no knowledge of cooking beyond the microwave meant he ate more takeaway than not.  He had a roll above his belt to vouch for the fact. 

His chest had gone all soft and chubby as well.  He tried hard not to think about the words he had read in a men’s magazine while at the doctor’s, “flabby pecs.”  He failed and shuddered.  How could he tell Hathaway that he was meant to have someone better, someone as perfect as he, someone whom he could look at fully and want with a force beyond reason.

“Jim, look at me.  This is me you’re talking to.  It’s just…I’m not what I used to be.  You’re still a lad.  You’re young and fit and, frankly, look pretty damn amazing without a stitch.  I’m an aging widower, grandfather, whose kids are your age.  I’ve gone soft in places I don’t want to think about and other places I’d rather you didn’t see.  It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

The look that greeted him when Hathaway finally raised his head did not bode well, equal parts thunderous and determined.  Lewis could only lower his gaze to stare at Hathaway’s hands gripping at his pajama clad knees.

“You don’t, though.  You don’t trust me.  You keep waiting for me to find someone better, don’t you?  In fact, you keep trying to get me to want someone else, telling me all the time I should go out with the band more often, mates my own age.”  Hathaway’s voice had been building in volume, and Lewis was certain he was going to have neighbors listening to his first domestic in a while, but then something slipped from the man.  The anger was gone, but there was still steel. 

And more softly Hathaway continued, “you honestly have no idea, no idea what you do to me.  For the last four years it’s felt like I’ve swallowed a live coal.  There’s this ever-present burning that starts in my gut and radiates outward until all of my skin feels overheated and tight.  You don’t know what I’ve wanted to do to you.  When you come into the office tired and worried, I want to go to you and lick your body clean of every care.  I want to break you open and out of your grief.  And when you come and rest your hand on my back as you look at the computer over my shoulder, it takes everything I have, everything I am, not to turn in my seat and push you up against the glass window in front of everyone.  I would learn every line and swell of your flesh as I take you apart with my mouth.  I want my hands to know the topography of your body from memory.  I want to walk around all day with the taste of you at the back of my mouth.”

Everything – the air, the light, the heat – seemed to Lewis to drain from the room as Hathaway finished speaking.  And then, all at once and in a rush, they returned and left him overheated, hard, and dizzy.  “Oh God!” was all Lewis was capable of for several minutes as Hathaway stared into his eyes, waiting for rejection or rebuttal.  He desperately hoped he wasn’t conveying either on his face as he lifted his hand to grasp Hathaway’s and brought it to the bottom of his shirt.  “Please?” was all he could manage.

Hathaway brought his thumbs under the shirt’s edge and pet the soft skin of Lewis’ stomach.  Time dilated for Lewis as each inch of skin exposed by the shirt was caressed by Hathaway’s hands in a path up along his chest and over each of his arms.  Throwing the shirt over the bed, Hathaway settled back on his knees again to soak in the sight of Lewis waiting for his touch.  “If someone asks, ‘What does perfect beauty look like?’ show him your own face and say, like this,”3 he quoted in a hushed, strained voice.

Lewis wasn’t sure how Hathaway expected him to capture fully the meaning of the words while Hathaway was looking at him like that. “Rumi again?  It sounds a bit too flowery for my likes,” was all he could think to respond.

“Yes, but I’ve always seen him as more fiercely passionate myself,” came Hathaway’s reply in concert with the start of his fingers drawing patterns from just below Lewis’ belly button, up over chest, and back down his sides. 

Lewis knew he had closed his eyes somewhere along in that path of fingers when he heard a soft susurration above him.  He opened his eyes again to see Hathaway removing his own shirt.  Lewis couldn’t close his eyes again, not with that skin on display in a bright, mid-morning light.  He rarely had the chance to admire an unclothed Hathaway in anything other than late night lamplight.  Then Hathaway was leaning forward, his head angling toward Lewis’ chest.  A hot mouth surrounded Lewis’ left nipple, the tongue tapping out a rhythm against the bud.  The feeling didn’t exactly send any shocks of sensation down to his groin, but Lewis already knew that he didn’t have particularly sensitive nipples.  Still the sensation was warm and good.

“Sorry, pet, but those don’t really work like they do on some men,” Lewis said while carding his hands through the golden hair on Hathaway’s crown.

“Mmm, I’ll just have to find all the other places that work,” Hathaway smirked before kissing his way to the other and giving it the same full attention.

Finishing with the second nipple, Hathaway dragged his nose through the hair at Lewis’ chest.  A broad swipe of tongue followed on the heels of a hum rising contentedly from Hathaway’s throat and through his nose.  He moved to the stripe of skin along Lewis’ left side just under his ribs and began planting wet, open-mouthed kisses there.  Lewis’ felt his stomach ripple and a small burst of air escape his mouth when Hathaway sank his teeth gently into the abundant flesh.

“Think I might have found a spot,” Hathaway murmured in a hoarse voice.  “Let’s see if the other responds as well.”

A trail of tongue moved up over his stomach and to his right side.  The kisses were repeated there and it seemed to Lewis that knowing what was going to happen, and how much it affected Hathaway, intensified the sensation.  He couldn’t hold back the low moan when teeth once again met his skin.  But Hathaway had other goals in mind and his side was abandoned in favor of a circling tongue around his navel and broad, long fingered hands sunk into his belly on either side.  Lewis was fast losing any control of his body, and he surged up into Hathaway’s mouth when his tongue pointed and pushed into his navel repeatedly. 

The tongue was replaced by Hathaway’s nose, drawing in long, broken breaths.  “From deep within my heart I always catch the scent of my beloved,”4 Hathaway again recited and added, “There’s another.  Turn over for me, love.”

Lewis felt Hathaway’s hands at his hips sliding his pajama bottoms down and off before returning to help him turn over on to his stomach.  He took a moment getting into the position, adjusting until his erection wasn’t pressing painfully into the mattress at an odd angle.

The hands returned to Lewis’ hips, this time from the back, and Hathaway asked, “Comfortable?”

“Now, yes,” was Lewis’ answer, squirming slightly against the bed as Hathaway swept his hands up and down his back.

Hathaway started lower on his back than he had on his front, lips and tongue meeting first the dip of his lower back and then each of his hips in succession.  With just the tip of his tongue, Hathaway traced the line of Lewis’ spine up to the space between his shoulder blades.  Lewis felt Hathaway move to shed his own bottoms, repositioning his knees on either side of Lewis’ thighs after.  He settled down onto the back of Lewis’ legs, and Lewis had the first sensation of how affected Hathaway was by all of it.  The heavy weight of Hathaway’s cock was now resting along the length of Lewis’ ass.  It felt hard and hot, and when Lewis raised his hips experimentally, he could feel a trickle of pre-come smear along his right cheek.  Hathaway emitted a hiss at the movement and Lewis’ ground his pelvis back down into bed.

Hathaway’s hands were back on his hips, stilling them with a “Not yet.” 

Lewis felt himself groan involuntarily in response.  Then hands were smoothing their way up along the muscles on either side of Lewis’ spine and down.  The gesture was repeated again with a detour to his sides the second time.  The third time Hathaway paused longer to grasp the flesh and knead it in his hands.  By the fourth time, Lewis was panting again.  He felt Hathaway lean forward onto his knees and bring his hands beneath Lewis’ arms on either side.  The mouth was back, this time tasting his shoulder blades.  He waited for Hathaway’s inevitable nipping.  He wasn’t disappointed.

“I’m never going to be able to concentrate again when Innocent accuses you of being mouthy,” Lewis spoke into the crook of his own arm.

“Well then, my work here is done.”  Even though the words had been teasing, they sounded constricted by desire as they left Hathaway’s mouth.

“You do like to use those teeth of yours, don’t you?  Should I be scared you’ll devour me in my sleep?”  Lewis felt far too close to the edge and was buying mind-clearing time with light-hearted jabs.

“Sometimes I can’t help but want to swallow you whole,” Hathaway answered into the nape of his neck, and all the haze of lust filled Lewis’ mind again.

At that moment, all Lewis wanted was that sweet sensation of Hathaway’s skin on his again, and he lifted his hips until he was almost on his knees, seeking the feel of Hathaway’s stomach and cock against him again.  When he reached Hathaway, the man barked out an “Oh, fuck,” before pulling an arm around Lewis’ waist to hold him close before lowering him back to the bed.  Hathaway laid himself out along Lewis, holding himself up on his elbows and letting the weight of his lower torso and pelvis sink into him.  Hathaway remained motionless for a long moment before beginning a slow thrust that rolled against Lewis’ entire body and ended against his upper back.  Hathaway repeated the thrust and Lewis groaned throughout the motion as it brought a delicious friction to his own cock against the bed underneath him.  On the third thrust, Hathaway ended by lowering his weight completely onto Lewis.  He could feel Hathaway’s labored breathing in his ear.

“Our hearts beat fast.  We tremble like leaves about to fall.”5  The words were spoken between Hathaway’s rapid inhalations, but each was crisp and enticing.

“How can you be quoting poetry right now?  I’ve barely still got my English over here,” Lewis countered in a strained, husky tone.

Hathaway might have been having his own difficulty with words, though, as he failed to respond and leaned over Lewis to reach into the bedside drawer, his hand emerging with the bottle of lubricant.  _Well, that’s a step in the right direction_ , Lewis thought with some relief.  He heard the cap of bottle pop as it was opened and closed again.  A slick hand caressed the back of Lewis’ thighs briefly then dove into the cleft between them and his ass.  Lewis tensed and pulled away from the hand. 

“It’s okay.  It’s not what you think.  Trust me?” Hathaway asked with a tone somewhere between soothing and pleading.

Lewis felt the weight behind that last question.  He wasn’t exactly sure what Hathaway had in mind, but he was sure the man wasn’t going to hurt him or do something he didn’t want. “Yes,” he said, hoping the tone conveyed the confidence he felt in Hathaway.  Hathaway ran his hands up and down the line from his ass to his balls a few more times, each with increasing, delicious pressure.

“I want to come in between your legs,” Hathaway murmured as Lewis felt the tip of Hathaway’s cock line up with the opening of the space he’d just finished preparing.

“Fffuck,” was Lewis’ only response, because this was threatening to melt him whole.  He wasn’t sure if Hathaway was with it enough to take that as a “yes,” so he decided for the direct route and pushed himself back until Hathaway’s cock slid into place.  Arms moved to bracket his, up under his shoulders, and Hathaway settled above him with his thighs just outside of Lewis’ own.  He could feel tremors moving through Hathaway’s arms and legs as he began the first slow thrust against him.  This wasn’t going to last very long if the man was already shaking with need.  On instinct, Lewis pulled his thighs closer together and clenched around Hathaway’s cock.

“Oh God!  Feel so good,” Hathaway ground out, his body stuttering more violently above Lewis.

Hathaway continued with thrusting in a deliberately drawn-out pace, and Lewis thought it was amazing the way he could feel every inch of Hathaway with a heightened level of detail along the hypersensitive skin of his thighs and crotch.  Hathaway felt like pulsing, burning velvet sliding down his perineum to push at his balls and up into the base of his own cock.  The force of the thrusts was just on the far side of enough for Lewis, but he had the feeling Hathaway hadn’t meant to get him off this way.  Hathaway, even in the midst of explosive sex, was proving a point.  “You have no idea what you do to me,” he had said.  Lewis had a better idea now.

Hathaway did not continue the unhurried pace for long, and soon he was pushing fast and hard with a mixture of grunts, moans, and bitten off exclamations of “Fuck!” and “Robbie!” and “God!”  Lewis barely registered the steady babble, because his whole awareness had narrowed to the points of contact between him and Hathaway.  He tried to catalogue every searing impact of Hathaway’s sweat-slicked pelvis against his ass, every push the tip of Hathaway’s cock made against his balls, every time the base ground into his perineum and Hathaway’s balls landed heavy against the back of his thighs.  In honesty, it all felt a little dirty and a lot perfect to Lewis.

“Close,” was all the warning Lewis had before he heard Hathaway moan at a shocking volume into the room and begin to shake apart completely against him.  For a second he felt it, the addition of Hathaway’s come to the wetness between his legs, but Hathaway was still moving between them, stroking himself through his orgasm, and it was lost among the lubricant and sweat.

Hathaway finally stilled and pulled out with an accompanying flurry of kisses to the back of Lewis’ neck and shoulders.  “Be right back,” he said and the bed pitched to Lewis’ right as Hathaway made his way to the bathroom on wobbly knees.  Lewis could hear the sounds of Hathaway in the bathroom, the running of a tap and splashing.  Lewis thought he should move, maybe roll over and lie back.  He couldn’t seem to catch his breath lying face down.  But he couldn’t seem to move, every nerve was oversensitive.  He was shivering, but he wasn’t sure if that was from the cold of the room.  He was also whimpering in a steady, low stream.

Hathaway came back from the bathroom with a flannel wet with warm water and a better handle on his land legs.  He started to clean Lewis in lengthy strokes, spreading his legs to get at all the traces of come and lubricant.

“Shh, love.  Let me turn you over,” Hathaway whispered into Lewis’ ear before kissing his favorite spot behind it. 

Lewis felt hands pull at his shoulder, his hip, and he then he was settled against the cleaner sheets on Hathaway’s side of the bed.  Hathaway continued his cleaning, delicately passing the flannel over the base of Lewis’ cock and around his balls.  Lewis wanted to call it torture.

“James, please,” Lewis begged and surged into Hathaway’s flannel covered hand.

Hathaway chuckled fondly, “All right, all right.  You know how I hate the taste of that lubricant, though.”

And Lewis’ mind went through a high speed photo replay of Hathaway below him, his mouth around Lewis’s cock, the bedside lamp glinting off his hair.  “Fucking fuck!”

“Precisely,” was Hathaway’s teasing reply as he slid down the bed. 

Pulling Lewis’ legs up over each of his shoulders, Hathaway licked a long, wet streak along his left palm and grasped Lewis’ cock hard at the base.  Lewis couldn’t help but let out a groan at the contact, despite knowing that the pressure was meant to make him back off his orgasm a bit.  Hathaway lowered his head to run a swipe of tongue across Lewis’ balls in each direction.  Taking the left in his mouth, he slipped his right thumb up and behind his mouth to press at Lewis’ perineum.  Lewis groaned loudly and gave up entirely on not announcing his sex life to all his neighbors.  Hathaway was rolling his ball in his mouth and tugging gently every few seconds when Lewis felt the middle finger of his right hand move to flutter against his entrance.

Lewis’ entire body froze in a contraction of almost bliss.  “Bloody hell, are you trying for death by sex?”

Hathaway stopped all movement and lifted his head to peer at Lewis from over the rise of his belly.  Lewis didn’t miss the suggestive dance of the man’s eyebrows.

“Cheeky sod,” Lewis had meant to say, but the second word was lost to a startled moan as Hathaway returned to his previous ministrations with renewed vigor.  The mouth was now on Lewis’ left ball and the thumb was pressing firmly behind it and the finger at his entrance was a flurry of movement.  Hathaway was stroking his cock at the same time, the first knuckle of his thumb running up along the vein underneath to end with a delicious swipe across the head and back down.  Lewis thought there was something unusual about this, beyond the obvious, but he couldn’t pinpoint it.  But then his mind caught it squarely.  Hathaway wasn’t left-handed.  Hathaway was stroking him everywhere with both his right and left hands.  Oh God, Hathaway was playing him like an instrument, like that guitar.  Lewis forgot to breathe for a moment.

“James!” was all Lewis could choke out to get his point across while trying to grab at any part of Hathaway.  He was inches away from orgasm.  He could taste it.

And mercifully the hand behind Lewis’ balls moved up to his cock as Hathaway placed a calming hand on Lewis’ stomach.  “I want to hear you, Robbie,” Hathaway said with a firm stroke of Lewis’ cock from root to tip. “I want to watch you come hard, and I want to hear you through every moment of it.”

Hathaway’s mouth was hot and perfect as he licked first at the slit and then around the entire head of Lewis’ cock.  Lewis had to reach for Hathaway’s hand on his stomach and clasp it in a tight grip as the tip of Hathaway’s tongue danced over the spot just beneath and under his cock head.  His other hand dug into the sheets at his side.

“Oh!  Please?  James!  Close!  Want!  Fuck!”  Lewis let all the words and sighs and pants and groans come falling out of him just as Hathaway had asked.  Hathaway’s mouth and hand were now moving quicker and tighter around Lewis’ cock, his tongue undulating along the underside.  Hathaway hummed low and satisfied along the length and Lewis fell.

Lewis felt his body curve in on itself, a tight bow made of his stomach muscles contracting en masse.  He was holding Hathaway’s hand in a white-knuckled grip, and he was practically screaming.  Tiny pinpoints of light danced behind his eyes where he had them squeezed shut.

He was still twitching slightly as Hathaway licked him clean for several minutes.  Lewis felt Hathaway pull his legs down to rest on the bed and then Hathaway was moving up to place warm, open-mouthed kisses all along Lewis’ still trembling stomach.

“There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” Hathaway breathed into Lewis’ belly.

“No more poetry.  Get up here.  Give us a kiss.”  Lewis wanted a kiss, a cuddle, and then sleep in rapid succession.

Hathaway curled into his left side this time and brought his lips to Lewis’ for a lazy kiss.  “Coffee?” he asked.

“Sleep,” Lewis said and pulled Hathaway’s head to his shoulder.

He fell asleep moments later to the gentle movement of Hathaway’s breath across his chest and the warmth of Hathaway’s hand on his stomach.

Fin 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. “Kneel and Kiss the Ground,” The Essential Rumi. Translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne. HarperOne, 2004.  
> 2\. “Untitled,” The Essential Rumi.  
> 3\. “Like This,” Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved. Translated by Jonathan Starr. Putnam, 1997.  
> 4\. “Willing Slaves,” Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved.  
> 5\. “The Birds of Paradise,” Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved.


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